§  What's New  ||  Search   ||  Legal Archive  ||  Wog Media  ||  Cult Media  ||  CoW ® ||  Writings  ||  Fun  ||  Disclaimer  ||  Contact  §

     
 

 

Notes on Damages Claims Special Bank Estimate

Guardian's Office (GO) US Intelligence gave this document to me in the fall of 1981, and I forwarded it to Omar Garrison as research material for the Hubbard biography.

The spelling, misspelling, punctuation, mispunctuation, spacing, misspacing, capitalization, minusculization, etc. are as given in the hard copy.


Note that this "Estimate" was done three months after David Miscavige's "take-over" of the GO.

See, e.g., Miscavige's declaration executed February 8, 1994 and filed in Scientology v. Fishman and Geertz, USDC Cen. Dist. Cal. No. CV 91-6426 HLH (Tx)

I gathered a couple of dozen of the most proven Church executives from around the world and briefed them on the criminal and other unethical conduct of the GO. Together, we planned a series of missions to take over the GO, investigate it and reform it thoroughly. On July 13, 1981, a matter of weeks after we had uncovered what was going on, and with no advance warning to the GO, a coordinated series of CMO missions were sent out concurrently to take over the GO.

-- David Miscavige
Declaration 02-08-1994
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/decl-miscavige-1994-02- 08.html#armstrong



I don't know for certain who wrote the Estimate. I suspect that someone in the top stratum of the "GO 11" had a hand in it, because of the "altitude" of the language, because of the spelling carelessness, and because some of the 11 were then doing amends in GO US awaiting the outcome of the criminal proceedings. The handwritten "much love" at the end of the document, an image of which I have imbedded in the html, may be helpful for ex-GO personnel, who might recognize the handwriting, to identify the writer.

The "Tom," to whom the Estimate is routed, is almost certainly Tom Ritchie, who (if my memory serves me) was DG Intel US at that time in 1981.

See, e.g., this mention of Ritchie 5 years earlier in Clearwater: http://www.holysmoke.org/cw10.htm

Here's a Tom Ritchie on the cult's IAS honor roll.
http://www.lermanet.com/scientology/IASnames.htm

And here's a Tom Ritchie with a Scientology cookie cutter website.
http://tomritchie.our-home.org/

I can't be certain, of course, that the IAS and cookie cutter Tom Ritchie are the former GO Intel guy, but given Scientology's actual small numbers in the U.S., and given that the cookie cutter site says that he is "the president of a mortgage company in Honolulu," it probably is.

Because this Honolulan Tom Ritchie most definitely is the Tom Ritchie I knew in GO Intel: http://www.transpacificmortgage.com/

See also: http://pacific.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/1997/10/06/story1.html


Note the Estimate's single program target:

Evaluate this entire scene by Monday,Oct.12,1981
with a complete handling worked out in alignment
with Juggernaut.

T/CIC Dir Info"

-- USGO Programme Order
The Juggernaut Eval
09-13-1981


The " Juggernaut Eval" (also written and executed under Miscavige's direction) was a GO "evaluation," done to result in the "Bright Ideas" of filing a ""Juggernaut" civil rights suit" against attorney Michael Flynn "to get complete restraint" on him, and of using "GO BLACK PR to handle Flynn" by " reclassifying" him as, e.g., an "extortionist." http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/juggernaut-eval.html#brightidea

Note in the Juggernaut Eval's "Policy" section, the quote from GO 784 "Intelligence, its Role" about "Estimates."

And note the 3 "Omitted Estimate" "outpoints" in the "Data" section; e.g.,

OMITTED ESTIMATE
DG I US
NEUS BI OPS.

-- USGO Programme Order
The Juggernaut Eval
09-13-1981

The "Program" for Juggernaut, which is dated September 13, 1981, contains targets that call for the assembling of the "Special Bank" to produce and execute the "Estimate, " which is dated October 8, 1981.

21. Get a special bank done on the entire damages area
which finds the who and the lines behind Flynn.
INFO CIC

[...]

24. Get the results of the special bank followed up on
and handlings done.
DG I US

-- USGO Programme Order
The Juggernaut Eval
09-13-1981

The "Damages Claims," which formed the subject of the " Special Bank," were the lawsuits that Flynn and associated lawyers, had filed (or perhaps might file) during that time period on behalf of people damaged by the Scientology cult. The Estimate emphasizes Flynn's Boston cases, e.g., LaVenda Van Schaick, Robert Dardano, Warren Friske. But possibly it also refers to other cases filed around that time by lawyers associated with Flynn in other areas, e.g., Tonja Burden, Nan McLean, John McLean, Jane Peterson, Carol Garrity, Thomas Jefferson, and others.


There is a mention in the Damages Claims Special Bank Estimate of a " Christo Special Bank Estimate."

This refers to Julie (Christofferson) Titchbourne who had sued Scientology in Portland. I haven't located the Christofferson Estimate, but the " Christo Final Handling Eval," which I believe was based on the Estimate, and written in August 1981, is webbed here: http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/christo-eval.html


The person who prepared the "Damages Claims Special Bank Estimate" describes the process followed of pulling almost 200 files from CIC (the cult's "Combat Information Center") amounting to 30 feet of information, which would have related to the Damages Claims, then making up cards for connections, and winnowing out thinner files and "obvious" files. What were left were the highly prized "fat files."

Hubbard laid out the philosophy underlying the "Estimate" in GO 784 WW "INTELLIGENCE, ITS ROLE" dated June 8, 1973, when he was hiding out in Queens, New York, and around the time he wrote the infamous Snow White Program. (As mentioned above, GO 784 is also quoted in the " Policy" section of Juggernaut.)

In this Guardian's Order, Hubbard gushes about the GO's potential to be the greatest Intelligence Service in the universe, and about the GO super-human intelligence beingness, which quite plainly he is saying he possesses. He changed his tune dramatically four years later about these GO intel super- humans, however, when their Intelligence Bureaus were raided by the FBI in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, and Hubbard fled from his new base in La Quinta, California to hide out in Sparks, Nevada.

Hubbard also discusses in this GO his Scientology cult's policy and practice of hiding its hard core intelligence activities behind euphemisms, and hiding its personnel behind "suitable guises." He makes it very clear, however, that what the cult's "Information Departments" and its " Information File Clerks," etc. are involved in is INTELLIGENCE.

GO 784 also shows the importance Hubbard put on Intelligence, claiming it was behind every great historical success. More relevantly, he makes the whole Scientology organization, its command structure, safety and survival, dependent on Intelligence.

The roles of Intelligence are PREDICTION and SUPPORT.

The first function of Intelligence is providing
planning, command and policy making with ESTIMATIONS
OF THE COURSE OF FUTURE EVENTS OF IMPORTANCE TO THE
GENERAL ACTIVITY.

[...]

The normal process of Intelligence is to procure
by numerous and varied and always changing means or to
use accumulated stores of DATA on a given subject
(called RAW data), add to it the data of the requiring
organization, process and coordinate the whole, add
Flair, and furnish a prediction which tells whether or
not there is a situation, its benefit or danger, its
extent and priority of attention, for the use of planning,
command and policy and including in its submission all
data used (within the limits of propriety and security).
This is called an ESTIMATE OF THE SITUATION.

This ESTIMATE must be in such a form as to be
of use, and have factual proof, unaltered, unperverted,
as to the existence or non-existence of the SITUATION
and its possible CONSEQUENCES or lack of them for the
ESTABLISHMENT or the persons being served.

[...]

An Intelligence Unit is always part of the MAIN
TEAM. The often secret nature of its work tends to
trend it toward autonomy and a divided separateness that
renders it either apathetic or individually ambitious.

An Intelligence unit that imperfectly understands
its function will omit to do a proper ESTIMATE but
will feed raw or fragmentary data to planning, command
and policy makers and will cause them to be alarmed
or overly confident and in any event will cause them to
make mistakes or even fail.

[...]

AND WE ARE, THEREFORE, WHILE BEING TOTALLY
PRACTICAL, AND WITHOUT USING ANY ACTUAL ARCANE
PROCESSES, POTENTIALLY SUCCESSFUL BEYOND THE GREATEST
DREAMS AND ASPIRATIONS OF ANY FORMER INTELLIGENCE
SERVICE IN THIS UNIVERSE BAR NONE.

Now if you can grasp that, you will grasp GO
Intelligence beingness and purpose. And having
grasped it, being a being and being YOU, you can BE
the beingness and do the doingness necessary to fulfill
the most extreme needs required by the GO and command
and policy making levels. Just decide to be it and
be it, then you can know it and then do it and you will
have it.

It is NOT supernatural.

It is merely super-human.

[...]

An Intelligence unit, then is the beginning and
part of the end of all SITUATIONS. Normally it is
divided into two parts, one which is defensive, the
other which is supportive (or attack).

Since the word "Intelligence" is too revelatory
on door plate and personnel rosters, it has become
customary in the last decade or two to give its
activities the title of "Information" department or
service, a euphemism (using a gentler name). But if
in doing so, its own personnel become drowsy or think
they are really public relations people, the re-titling
has gone too far.

In all the texts that cover the activities of
historical intelligence or its technology, it is bluntly
INTELLIGENCE. So that is the subject title when one is
studying it. Calling it the "information Department"
must only be regarded as itself, "a suitable guise".
One can call herself "The Information File Clerk" and
have that on her personnel record and tell it to her
friends; but in actual fact she is the "Intelligence
File Clerk" and by putting names into folders and
cross indexing names she is putting her delicate and
well manicured finger on Mr. Mugg and Mrs. Badcat day
after day as surely as James Bond ever pointed the small
but deadly muzzle of his Walther pistol. And the
Handler of Operatives in NE America may well call himself
"NE Information Director", he is still handling
operatives who "in suitable guise" are getting the data
for defense or support that will PREDICT and help to end
some things that would be very, very rough indeed were
they to get out of hand. So they are still Intelligence
personnel. So even their beingness has "a suitable
guise", a fact which must never obscure their ability to
attain FLAIR. And use it.

[...]

And as to its use, behind every great battle
win, every successful handling of a crisis in empire,
there was Intelligence, doing a splendid job. It is
remarkable that school histories and the public are
not aware of these. You have to be an Intelligence
person to look them up and understand them and how
important they were.

To the public, then, it is a SILENT service, a
part of the scene that isn't there, maybe like a
thetan looking on above the crowd.

But to the planners, command and policy-makers
of an organization it is not silent. The very safety
and continuance of the whole organized body daily
depends upon its Intelligence people, their flair, their
investigation, their raw data, their estimate and their
prediction, and in the end of it, their support in
making defense and attack possible, purposeful and
effective.

And GO Intelligence has the added bonus that
what it is doing for the organization, it is doing for
the world and therefore for themselves as well.

-- GO 784 INTELLIGENCE, ITS ROLE
June 8, 1973
© L. Ron Hubbard



While still in Queens, Hubbard also wrote GO 907 "CONFIDENTIAL - INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATIONS AND PREDICTIONS," dated August 22, 1973, which expands on his "Estimates" "tech," and provides the procedural steps followed by the writer of the "Damages Claims Special Bank Estimate" in 1981. Now, of course, the Sea Org, which took over the cult's Intelligence apparatus and activities when it took over the GO, uses computers for its " estimates," because wogs (R) have remedied computers' "electronic liabilities."

The concept referred to in this GO of the "fattest file" or "fattest folder" appears a number of places in Hubbard's " scriptures, " and is quite nuts. It is reflective of Hubbard's paranoia, and has resulted in countless people being wrongly targeted. Actually, if the fat file tech were correctly applied, it would become instantly clear that Hubbard had the fattest file of all. And indeed he is, or was, the right target, and every Scientologist's " who." Now, of course, David Miscavige's name appears in most reports, he has the fattest file, and is the right target.

GO Intel's "stats" were traditionally "incidents and connections." Now probably almost all the past incidents are known and almost all the past, and clearly relevant, connections have been identified, so Intel would have a somewhat different emphasis from when the cult's intel apparatus was in its most frantic data gathering years. What they're doing now appears to belong in "Red Box" and not in the CIC "main file."
See, e.g., http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/red-box.htm

When an agent or operative turns in summaries or documents,
these are poured into the main Intelligence Files and any "special
bank" that is of current interest.

These main files or "special banks" can be made to operate
like computers without the bother of electronic liabilities.

Modified only by errors of concentrated attention where none
should be going or omissions of areas that should be under
collection, these files or "special banks" will divulge new data.

Here is where we leave the subject of Intelligence Reports
(See HCO PL 25 April 1968, Intelligence Actions) and enter the
field of ESTIMATION AND PREDICTION. (See GO 784 Intelligence,
Its Role 8 June 1973)

A main file is where everything is filed. A "special bank"
is a separate file where data is ADDITIONALLY AND ALSO filed
relating to an exact subject.

When filing and cross-indexing is kept up to date (and it
always must be) it is now possible to begin the work of ESTIMATION.

This is done by examining the main files and locating the
fattest folders related to any one group or subject.

[...]

The "special bank" is not very elaborate. It can be as crude
as simply spreading out the folders on a desk and looking them over
FOR THINGS THEY HAVE IN COMMON OR NAMES IN COMMON TO THEM.

It can be as elaborate as making a new card index for every
name in those files and what file they came out of; then filing
those cards in alphabetical order. As one has taken EVERY name
out of each file in turn and put each on a separate card, it is
obvious that when one then puts them in alphabetical order, the
names in common to two or more files will occur as two or more cards.

If agents are trained to collect all names and connections of
names on every investigation and if these names are supplemented
by adding in directories, and if filing has been kept up so that
a file exists for every name, when you choose files for a special
bank they will be the fattest on that subject. And when you work
the special bank over again, you will get the precise common
denominators of people that run through several files.

[...]

One can vary this system of Intelligence filing and making
"special banks" in a number of ways. One can shortcut everything
in it but the actual making of the main files and the actual pulling
of "special banks" and studying them.

One can keep a main system of individuals flanked by a cross-
index system of groups which shows how many individuals in the main
bank fit into each specific group.

One can keep a main file of groups and flank it by "special
banks" of individuals who are common to one another or to groups.

The whole point is that ALL data by name and separately by
group must get into the main files.

The action of estimation is helped by a system that shows some
GROUP getting fat with names.

The action of prediction is always done by forming a "special
bank" for study and sorting out.

[...]

Intelligence filing done well, estimated well, furnishes
predictions which can be programmed and situations can be
handled that would otherwise drop on one from an apparently
clear sky.

-- GO 907 CONFIDENTIAL - INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATIONS AND PREDICTIONS
August 22, 1973
© L. Ron Hubbard



In his Policy Letter "Intelligence Actions," dated April 25, 1968, which he cites to in GO 907, Hubbard distinguishes between data collection, filing and summaries, which are the responsibility of " Intelligence Officers," and Estimates, which are the hat of Intel division heads.

Hubbard gives supreme importance here to information collection in his cult, calling the forwarding of false information or the failing to forward information a "high crime."

He makes the assertion in this PL, which is found in a number of places in his "scriptures," and is essential to the hate group that is Scientology, that "only those people that have crimes" will attack the cult -- or, necessarily, attack the cult's hateful, antisocial and criminal policies and practices.

And Hubbard provides as a "maxim" (a general truth, fundamental principle, or rule of conduct) what has ever since been the Scientology cult's only permissible response to such a criticism of its nasty policies and practices -- attack .. attack .. attack!

An Intelligence Officer, gives summaries. Never estimates
of the situation.

[...]

Forwarding of false information is a very high crime. Failure
to forward information is an equally high crime.

An Intelligence Officer collects data, files by name and area,
writes summaries and forwards the data to the correct terminal. This
person should never at any time consider themselves capable of giving
an estimate of the situation. This is done by the head of the
division.

[...]

The maxim is .. "when under attack .. attack". The point is .. even if
you don't have enough data to win the case .. still attack .. LOUDLY.
Reason is, it is only those people that have crimes that will attack
us, and they will soon back off for fear of being found out when
attacked back.

Filing is a very important action in Intelligence. You file
by name and area. If you get a report that has 10 names on it ..
10 copies are made and a copy placed in each file. Areas can be
kept by country, state, town etc., depending how large an intelligence
unit you are handling.

[...]

L. RON HUBBARD
Founder.

HCO PL Intelligence Actions
April 25, 1968
© L. Ron Hubbard



In HCO Policy Letter "Ethics Officer Hat," dated May 11, 1965, which is the cult's current policy, or "scripture," Hubbard shows that "fat file" Intel tech is not limited only to the GO's or the Sea Org's hard core Intelligence personnel, but is to be used by every Ethics Office in every organization. The fat file, Hubbard asserts, identifies the Suppressive Person or Potential Trouble Source on staff, who is to be removed from org communication lines.

The Ethics Officer's hat is to make executives write reports on staff, to file the reports, and to blitzkrieg the poor guy whose file gets fat. Hubbard says that this procedure is "Intelligence work." So is, of course, the writing of all those "staff member reports" by all those Scientologists that go into all those Ethics files.

The fat file tech given here is nuts on its face, because it doesn't take into account time or the nature of the reports that comprise the files. One person might have been around for twenty years, and may appear in hundreds of reports, but could be a highly disciplined, productive employee. Another person might have just been hired, and has a skinny file, but is a dishonest goof-off. The good guy with the fat file gets the lightning called down on him. And that is precisely the way Ron worked.

The purpose of the Ethics Officer is "To help Ron clear orgs and the public if
need be of entheta and enturbulation so that Scientology can be done."

The activities of the Ethics Officer consist of isolating individuals who are
stopping proper flows by pulling withholds with Ethics technology and by removing as
necessary potential trouble sources and suppressive individuals off org comm lines and
by generally enforcing Ethics Codes.

[...]

FILING

Filing is the real trick of Ethics work. The files do all the work, really.

Executive Ethics reports patiently filed in folders, one for each staff member,
eventually makes one file fat. There's your boy.

Call up a Court of Ethics on him and his area gets smooth.

Whatever report you get, file it with a name. Don't file by departments or
Divisions. File by names.

The files do 90% of the work. When one file gets fat, call the person up for Ethics
action.

[...]

POLICY

[...]

Be as sudden and swift and unreasonable as you like. You aren't there to win a
popularity contest.

Make Executives report all those Ethics items they should. Make them write their
orders and send you a copy. Make your Comm Centre give you the responses for
pairing with the copies. File carefully and call the lightning down on the person who
gets a fat Ethics file.

It's an easy job. Mostly admin. But so is all Intelligence work. The files do the
job if you make people report and if you file well yourself.

And when you feel exasperated and balked and feel like taking it out on
somebody, do so by all means.

Whoever heard of a tame Ethics Officer?

The sanity of the planet is all that is at stake.

L. RON HUBBARD

-- HCO PL Ethics Officer Hat
May 11, 1965
© L. Ron Hubbard

Separately I've made some notes and provided some links for a number of the proper names that appear in the Damages Claims Special Bank Estimate. And I'll just finish with a slightly humorous anecdote involving this document. I've testified to these facts in deposition, so there isn't any revelation here that will help the cult.

The Estimate was done, as it makes clear, for the purpose of determining the "major WHO's behind Flynn damages cases," and concluded that it was the Rockefellers.

A major source of the reports and data on which the Estimate is based was Gail O'Neill (the spelling in the Estimate - "O'Neil" - is wrong), daughter of George and Abby O'Neill. Mrs. O'Neill is, as the Estimate states, a granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller, progenitor of the "Rockefeller Dynasty" and Rockefeller fortune.
http://www.iirr.org/html/citizenAbbyGeorge.htm

Gail O'Neill was in Scientology, and it is obvious from the Estimate that she was communicating her family's activities and connections to the GO. She was "debriefed" by GO Intelligence in Clearwater in July, 1981 , just 3 months before the Estimate was written.

Somehow, and not through me, the O’Neills obtained a copy of the Estimate, and somehow they learned that I could authenticate it. So they arranged through Mike Flynn for my then wife Jocelyn and me to visit with them, and Gail, in their home on Long Island, New York. We spent part of two days with them, I believe in 1983, relating our experiences and knowledge of the cult.

The funny thing is that, prior to Scientology’s creating its Estimate that claimed that the Rockefellers were behind the damages claims being litigated by Flynn, the Rockefellers had not supported him in any way whatsoever. But the Estimate was so shocking in what it revealed of Scientology's evil intentions towards the Rockefellers and the way the cult had used Gail that one or another of the family foundations subsequently did help Flynn financially with his costs in defending the cult's damaged victims and in getting the word out about its destructive practices.

What Flynn received from the Rockefellers I never knew, and I believe it was only a fraction of the enormous costs to him in the seven years he fought the cult. Nevertheless, it must have helped, and must have greatly encouraged Flynn at the time. The Estimate was a self-fulfilling postulate and one of the cult's more poetic footbullets.

See the " Freedom" black PR edition on the Rockefellers, the Long Island meeting, and the assistance the cult claims was given to Flynn


All fair use quotes on this page are provided in conformance with this site's Disclaimer.

© 2003 Gerry Armstrong

 
   

§  What's New  ||  Search   ||  Legal Archive  ||  Wog Media  ||  Cult Media  ||  CoW ® ||  Writings  ||  Fun  ||  Disclaimer  ||  Contact  §